Category: Life

Where I would talk about life in general or about stuff that is affecting my life at the moment.

Spring-ish Update

Hello All….

I was planning to have this post be, well, posted back in January or early February, but obviously this didn’t happen. Aside from the New Years Resolution post and a couple others over the last year, I know its been quite for some time on this site between posts. Well, I have moved from the Southwest back to the Northwest of the United states in part is because that the “status quo” in my life had to be changed. Plus people were trying to “keep” in Arizona or I should say that people are/were expecting me on staying in Southern Arizona for the rest of my life.

Multi level Rocks with foliage.
Here are some multi level rocks located near Lily Lake at the south end of Fallen Leaf Lake, South Lake Tahoe, CA.

One thing that I’m going to try to do is to finish school in the Northwest. I’m going to try to buy a house while I’m finishing school. I’ve been looking for a bit of time, but haven’t really found a house that “feel” that “right” house to buy.

Knock on wood that I may or would have a new place by the end of summer. I, generally, know what type of place that I want to buy but finding it is another thing altogether. Though, one thing I would like or need a place that is big enough for a dog and for myself.

A Dead Tree in a Valley along a road from Virginia City, Nevada.
A Dead Tree in a Valley along a road from Virginia City, Nevada.

Updates Since January:

I took a class this last winter quarter but I didn’t have a good study habits, though my studying habits changed midway through the term. I did register for a class for the spring term but decided to drop it because I wasn’t able to properly have things setup a site properly. The subject of class is / was focused on developing themes for and customizing WordPress. Knock on wood that it would be offered again at some point again but I’m not holding out any hope that it would be offered again in the Fall term.

It didn’t help that I wasn’t in a good mindset to do homework for the last week because I concerted on my now dead dog (see the post here – opens in a new window).

One of my dogs that I had since 2014 had died back on the last weekend of March. Rogue died because of severe case of arthritis which affected his lower back and legs. Now without having a dog around I found myself bored and feeling “listless” as to what to do with my free time.

One thing I miss doing is going out and driving to places with my camera; since I can’t really do that until the stay in place is lifted in Oregon and California. Since I’m basically stuck inside which I’m doing some “spring” cleaning around my place.

This is a mountain peek located near Virginia City, Nevada.
This is a mountain peek located near Virginia City, Nevada.

The way things would look like is that it would be at least before I could go out for a drive with my camera. The places that I want to go to is Mt. Hood and parts of eastern Oregon.

One thing that I wanted to do but never did before the “stay at home” order here in Oregon was to travel to the beach or to trails around the Portland Metro. Obviously, I’m going to wait til things are more open to about the same levels before things closed down because of the pandemic. What I mean is that I should have and could have traveled around the region in January and February to take Photos – lots of photos. Whether if its on a trail, downtown Portland or around Vancouver, WA. and I didn’t do it where I didn’t want to go out at all for some reason. I know that’s a very lame reason.

There is a little more that I want to say but I’ll do another post at some latter time. I don’t want to jink things for the next six weeks or so.

New Years Resolution(s)

For the last several years I haven’t done any New Year’s Resolutions since I wasn’t in any position to follow through with any resolutions that I thought of. Though, I do have a couple of New Years Resolution that I want to do and to follow through this coming year.

A Quarter Moon taken one evening in March 2017.
A Quarter Moon taken one evening in March 2017.
  • Start taking classes again – I’ve already registered for two;
  • Blogging more on this site;
  • Take More Photographs in Oregon and Southwest Washington;
  • Travel – Road Trips in Oregon, State of Washington, and Northern California when possible;
  • Look for and buy a house by the time summer arrives this year – if possible of if at all;
  • Possibly remove myself from social media at some point this year (Instagram, Facebook, etc.);
  • Maybe create videos and share on this site by the way of drone – depends on where I can use the drone if I get one;
  • I may start a podcast of some kind but not sure.

There are a couple of other items that I thought of adding to the above list but it is just a matter of time before things could pan out later the year.

I want to do all of the stuff on this list, but I could see myself doing several of those things on the above list. But then I could nothing at all expect for going back to college.

Another Update on my Dog

I have some sad news to share about my dog Lolo and that she passed away this last Wednesday due to complications of Valley Fever (Background Info at Wikipedia.org – opens in a new window).

Below is a gallery of photographs that I took of Lolo that I took since 2013/2014. You can, also, find a similar post here and another gallery of photographs.

Here is Lolo sitting in the sun one afternoon.
Here is Lolo laying down in front of the porch steps while in the shade.
Here are Rogue and Lolo on a road on family property in California.

Help my Disabled Brother

Hello all

I’m asking for a little help for my disabled brother who has diabetes and has a prosthetic leg. The help I’m asking for is to help fix his car that he needs to get to his prosthesis and to see his diabetic doctors.

He has been using rent money to pay for taxi’s to and from his doctor’s and by doing that he has been evicted from his apartment, so now he is homeless too.

If you are able to help him or us to get his car fixed and here is a way to help him by donating at: Go Fund Me. There’s more details on the Go Fund Me page.

There is obligation on your part – meaning you the followers to help. This would be one of the rare times I would be asking for any kind of help in raising funds.

Thanks for any help that might be able to give him.

Peter

P.S. This post will be cross-posted with two other sites at bhchinooks.com and at psmithoregon.worpdpress.com.

Time flies

Time sure as passed quickly over the last two months and it just seemed like that school had started for the term. Yet, now finals are just a couple of weeks away. During this time my disposition has improved to some degree for reasons that I don’t want to say here. Anyway, I’m hoping that this term is better in regards to my grades at school than the last two terms at school.

I haven’t done well one class per term for each of the last two terms – where I didn’t or wasn’t able to handle a “full” load at University. Which is puzzling because I was able to handle a full load of classes in the past. Though, between the time I stopped school in 2007 and starting in 2012 I think that my learning styles have changed from being able to handle a full load of classes to concentrating on two or three class depending if I’m at a community college or at a university. I have some backup plans if things don’t work out with the school I’m at.

Anyway, during this last month and half my car broke down and I’m unable to get it fixed yet. I’m trying to get money lined up to get it fixed. Since the broke down I have been using the bus during this time to get to school. Which I needed to schedule(d) my time better in regards to doing homework and other things with my life. Also, in this time I have lost some weight and I’m very slowly getting back to the weight that I was years ago. My health is getting better though ever since getting back to a 4 year University.

Enough about my weight and health for now.

With school, it looks like that I would be done with school in about 1 and a half years to 2 years from now. Though, I did change my degree from a Business Major to an Urban Studies degree.

Anyway, hopefully I’ll be posting some more stuff soon. Later…

Finding Work

Note: This is cross posted with this post. The crossed listed post is long gone.

For most of the year I’ve been putting in applications to a lot of companies with no luck. I’ve gotten an interview with one company but wasn’t offered a position that I had an interview with.

With the amount of time passing by I don’t know if I would be able to get a job. I know I could go to school and further what ever knowledge that I have, but at this point its just going to keep my busy and there’s a possibility of not being able to get a job after getting a degree of some kind.

It seems like that I have a constant run of bad luck over the last 6 years or so. I’ve been a caregiver for the 10 or so years – which had been a full time job (at least 50+ hours) in which I wasn’t paid for. I was caregiver for a relative with a some what limited income during this time. Not being paid to be a caregiver which is “screwing” me over in a few ways. The obviously way is preventing me from me getting hired on at company in Oregon.

All I want is to find work someplace and save some money to live on. Granted the way the job market is happens to be an “employers market.”

Seems like that I’m looking in all of the wrong places or answering those “assessment” the wrong way on online applications.

I even put in for McDonald’s and I don’t know if I’m going to hear from them. If I don’t, I just wonder what’s wrong on how I’m approaching on filling out applications or whatever related to filling out applications. Don’t know if that made any sense but whatever.

Anyways, all I want to do is to work and go to school …. is that to much to ask. Seems that no matter on what I try to improve my life seems all I get are road blocks of some fashion. It’s like that I shouldn’t have left Alaska in the first place, even though I got really tired of the cold, snow and the long nights.

later…..

daylight savings time

Note: This is a post that I complaining about the change over of daylight savings time. In other words I’m just ranting on in a useless post. Otherwise don’t complain, if any complaints they’ll be deleted – fair warning.

I don’t know why but daylight saving time this year has screwed me up to some degree. I wasn’t fully prepared for the switch over cause I’m so used to the switch over in April, and plus for the last day or 2 my sleeping has also gotten messed up by losing an hour. I can understand the logic of having daylight savings time starting a month sooner.

But alas I wasn’t or I didn’t get myself prepared for the change over and the lost of sleeping time. But hopefully I would be prepared this fall and next spring for the earlier and later change over.

sort of have been writing more

Seems like that recently I’ve been wanting to write some more either on this blog or on my side blog located on wordpress.com. Though, some of the posts that I wrote were posted as private so I could go back and reread them so they could sound better to me and to see if I would need to rewrite them if needed. Or the posts that I write would get deleted after I spend some time in writing them.

I think its the fact of writing that’s been helping me getting some things out in the open and air out the “dirty laundry” that’s been going shifting through my mind. And what I mean by “dirty laundry” is that things that I normally try to say to some doesn’t get really said after the fact. Then if I like the way the post is edited I would then post it, but some, as I have said, I would delete the post that I spent time on doing. Granted it may be a waste of time doing a post but I think its the fact of writing something is or would be helping me in dealing with stuff – if at all. Plus, there are a lot of things that I could write about on this blog or the few other that I have or had in the past but it wouldn’t be right if I did that. Though if I did write about other people and the stuff that they did or have said to me, I think I would be in some kind of legal trouble and that’s why I tend to keep things in the very general sense when I’m writing stuff.

In the past when I post stuff to this blog or to the ones that I’ve had in the past they’ve been to the point and sometimes very brief. Though looking back on things in regards to blogging in general I might have dong things a bit different, in what way I wouldn’t know how I would do things differently. One thing that I would have done differently would be writing some longer posting in some fashion on many different subjects.

Its just that recently that I’ve been writing more constructive, thoughtful or thorough writings. Or in the past which were to the point postings, like the post about the feed for this blog. Speaking of which, the plug-in that I got through feedburner.com which is a wordpress plug-in redirects the regular feed to the feedburner feed. In the options menu for this plug-in has an option for the comments feed too that if you use feedburner for it. I know what I’ve just said might be redundant but if it is please ignore it.

Plus, I think I’m also making up for some lost time in writing some more constructive and longer posts. As it is that I should be writing more stuff other than those post’s that I’ve been complaining about stuff (look in the archive over the last year or two, I might have a couple still visible to the public).

Another thing that I’ve noticed is that after writing some post I tend to get to sleep sooner at night, and another reason would be that getting my somewhat stopped getting worked up about stuff when I go to bed at night. In the past when I when to bed for some reason I would get myself worked up and wouldn’t get to sleep for hours on end. But for some reason is that I’ve (mostly) stopped doing that. Though I’ve been doing that to some extent, but its not getting me anywhere and nowhere fast.

On a side note that I hope or might have a feeling that the situation that I’m currently in …. hopefully … would be getting better but I’m not totally sure yet. Let me say that I’m stuck in the proverbial “rock and a hard place” especially in the last 6 to 8 months. Though, If I’m able to leave Alaska this summer I will and I would take the chance to do it (see this post and this one).

If I was able to leave a couple of years ago I would have left without looking back. But life hasn’t really been kind to me while living in Alaska, and I think having bad karma for a while might have something to do with it. But thats for another post and for another time.

Though I would like to write some more …. now its time to go for now…

bye for now

Peter

Traveling

Generally I don’t mind traveling at all, its just the leading up to getting on to the plane that I don’t like. What I mean is that before I travel to some where or head back home I get a nervous feeling that I would leave something important behind or something that has sentimental value behind when I leave a place that I have visited.

Anyway, I was able to finally get out of the city that I’ve been living in for the better part of 14 years and traveled to Anchorage for just under a week and it was a good feeling too. I was going “stir crazy” by doing the same routine over and over again, which gets very stale, very quickly. By getting out of the same routine every so often is a very good thing for the mind and the soul. Its just by doing something different in a different city even for a short time could be helpful for your mental state and health. Basically a change of pace for me at least is a good things cause I’m tired of being in the same situation that I’ve been (which I really won’t get into at the current time) and getting out of town is nice on occasion.

There are a lot of things that I could about traveling on very short notice, but one thing I hate is the price of hotel rooms when the travel dates are just a day or 2 from the actually finding out especially in regards to traveling with someone who has to go to a hospital in Anchorage. If I had better foresight I could have found better deals on hotels if I actually did a better job looking for the deals. Then there’s trying to figure out the travel plans on getting back home which is a pain of the ass.

I haven’t had an extended or a long trip for a long time, it would be fun and exciting to some extent but it would be fun to travel for an extended time. Though I’ve traveled for a “full” day – like twice – over the last 18 months before this last week. The times that I’ve travels was back in December of 2006 and one day of Summer of 2007 and that was to and from Anchorage.

Though I would like to travel more often but I just don’t want to travel that much by air, I would much rather travel by car or the train. I would prefer to travel by train but passenger rail today in the U.S. isn’t like what you can or could find in Europe or in many parts of Asia – as far as I know. If I was able to I would like to own my own passenger cars and such.

There are a lot of things that I want to do like traveling but its just the matter of getting the money to do stuff like this but when the economy is like the way it is, its just not practical to do so. Plus, the way my life has been going recently its just not worth the time or the energy to even think about doing such things. As much as I want to think and plan trips, its just like planning to do other basic fun stuff when you don’t have the time to do such stuff.

I could go on and on about what I want to do in regards to traveling and things that I want to do but I don’t know what else to say at the moment or what to add to this post.

bye for now…

The proverbial Fork in the Road

As you may tell by the title of this post that there’s a proverbial “Fork in the Road” decision is coming soon that I should or need to make – well in 6 to 7 months time. The decision that I’m trying to make is to whether stay here in Alaska for 2 more years and finish University, or to move to back to the “lower 48” next summer and could finish at another University that I have in mind. I don’t want to say which University that I’m thinking of applying to transfer to yet.

During this time I would need to consider some other factor whether or not I should stay or to leave Alaska. The reason for that statement is that there somethings that are somewhat “beyond my reach” but that’s not the phrase that I’m not looking for. The other phrase I might consider is “beyond my control.” There might be one or two other phrase’s that might be helpful or be used in this situation but can’t think of these phrase’s.

As I’ve just said that there are few other factors to be or should be considered and depending on what happens with these other outside factors/choices would help me make the decision whether or not to stay in Alaska.

Now here is the main reason for this “Fork in the Road” decision I should or need to make: I see an opportunity or an opportunity is presenting its self to me to leave the state of Alaska sometime during this next year possibly for a very long time. If I choose to stay here in Alaska to finish University I doubt that I’ll never leave this state for a long time, and miss a lot of opportunity to broaden my horizon’s in life. Like to travel the planet – see a later paragraph.

Anyway, looking at the situation that I’m currently in is making me think about what I want to do with my future. What I see is that I could stay for several more years and finish University and live here for the next 10 years or more, or I could move in 8 – 9 months and attend another University and “get on” with the rest of my life and have minimal contact with my family over the intervening years as time marches forward. Though there is possibly nothing wrong with either choice with what I want to do with the rest of my life.

If I stay here and finish University here in Alaska I would be done in approximately 2 years time starting in Fall 2008. If I do stay it looks like that I would be taking at least 5 classes per term – not that I mind taking that many classes at one time, though it would be difficult to manage my time among other things.

If I do move and attend another University in the “lower 48” I would figure that it would take me, I think, at least 3 years or more to complete the required course work at the new University that I might attend.

Though I wasn’t planning to be taking classes this long (started in Fall 2002), now is Fall 2007. What I wanted to do was to transfer to another University 2 years ago and that didn’t happen at all. Basically it was poor of did proper planning on my part. I did take several classes over again which screwed things up for me academically in the long run.

Now the problem or the questions I need to ask my self are: What should I do about my education?, Should I stay in Alaska and finish University here?, Should I transfer to another University and finish my education there? Should I stay here and finish my education here then go to another University and get another degree? Should I take a break from University altogether for a year and travel?

One thing that I would like to do is to visit several countries and a few other state’s in the U.S. The places that I would like to visit to while on break from University are Ireland, the United Kingdom, Italy, maybe Spain, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Canada. Though not in this order and would or could take me several years to travel to each country listed here.

During the next 3 to 4 months would help me to determine whether or not on what happens if I’m choose to transfer to another University or to stay in Alaska for the next 5 to 10 years. Though I didn’t plan to stay in Alaska as long as I did – nearly 15 years of my life that I’ve been living here. The truth is that I’ve been wanting to leave Alaska for the last 5 years and the situation that I’m in prevented – well mostly prevented me from leaving and “getting on” with my life.

As I’ve said earlier in this post that there’s an opportunity for me to leave, now the problem is whether or not I should take this chance and take life by the balls and run with it.

I could go on with this post and talk more but it seems like that I’ve got the majority of it said here in this post and I would be just babaling on like a jack rabbit – if there’s ever such a thing to witness. I might post updates to this over time depending on what happens over the next several months.

Bye for now….

Peter

lack of writing

There’s a lot of things that I want to write down and say a bunch of stuff but can’t bring myself on doing it. There’s some weired – well odd stuff going on with my family which I won’t say here. My main problem now is trying to get what I want to say, etc and put them into words but for the life me I’m unable to. I would really like to sit down and write good long entries on this blog but I can’t seem to – let alone a paper based “journal.”

Lately, I’ve been trying to improve my life a little, I’ve been considering transferring to another university in the “lower 48” for awhile now, and I got around to send away for information from at 6 different universities. Though I might just apply to 2 or 3 universities by the end of the summer. By then I would have hopefully gotten all of the requested information that I sent away for.

Right now I want to say even more stuff or even talk about but I just can’t bring my self on doing it. I have a felling that something is holding me back and preventing me from saying what I want to say on my mind or what ever else that comes to mind.

I think part of my problem is that I just want to walk away from everything and say a big f-you to my life and my family; but I won’t be doing that because it won’t be the “proper” thing to do right now. I have generally nothing against my family but sometimes it makes me wonder if I’m ever going to get away from family for a while. While I could go on about my life and my family – things have a way of coming back at the most unexpected time and bite me in my a**.

bye for now….

Peter

Motivation

Recently I haven’t had a lot of motivation to attend to things that I want, should or need to do. One example is going to the gym on a regular basis. Another is working – well updating my website – another would be switching the feeds for this blog over to feedburner. I’m putting the latter off because I’ve got a bunch of old and new themes that I have to modify to make the switch to the feedburner service. Any and all things I want to do on the web or on my pc is because I’m using a Windows pc from Gateway. Gateway PC’s are good but with the Windows OS (any version) is that I just that for some reason can’t or unable to do a lot of stuff that I want to do but it seems like that I’m held back just by using Windows.

Though I tend to get more stuff done with a Macintosh computer’s but I don’t use a Mac on a regular basis anymore hopefully soon.

Anyways, back to the topic on hand…

I want to continue on writing on this subject is that I’m not just motivated enough to finish or contiue with this post.